For the second time in our quest for Scheveningen's best beach breakfasts, Rihanna Gaga and I head to the southern beaches. Our destination is Strandpaviljoen La Cantina, just beyond Scheveningen's harbour. This is the first time that, instead of walking, we're taking the bicycle. Rihanna Gaga loves cycling - well, she doesn't cycle, of course, sitting in her baby seat on the front of the bicycle, where she babbles and shouts away, enjoying the wind in her hair. There's a big fire in the harbour, with a huge cloud looming over the surroundings and the stench of burned plastic everywhere. Something big has happened: there's police cars everywhere and during our time in La Cantina, there'll be a police helicopter hovering over the harbour area the whole time.
La Cantina is a classic beach club: a yellow wooden structure with tilted roof, surrounded by a sprawling terrace. Like all beach clubs at the southern beaches, it is spacious and stands on its own, with a long distance to the next beach club on either side. The furniture is unpainted or whitewashed wood, there's a few olive trees that add a mediterrean flavour to the terrace and there is a moderate amount of Buddhas to be found. And then there is the oddity of several large replicas of the Easter Island heads painted bright blue. There's a fair amount of people around, mostly mums with their children. (Don't people have jobs to do?) The
atmosphere is relaxed and the wide panoramic view adds to the laid back vibe.
In fact, as a dad I am a minority here. There is one other dad with his son of about three years old, but he loses points for team daddy when he becomes so absorbed in business phonecalls that he doesn't notice his son has lost him. While he is talking on the phone and later checking his text messages on the terrace, his son is running around among the Buddha statues inside, panicking and shouting for his dad.
I order the mini breakfast, not because I am hungry, but because oddly enough, the mini breakfast is the only breakfast there is in La Cantina. At first, it seems not great value for money at €9,95, which will bring you coffee, orange juice, croissant with jam, toast and scrambled eggs and a few bits of fresh fruit. However, most beach clubs that offer more food for the same price, won't include drinks, so that seems to even it up.
Despite the fact that there are much more people around than normally during our Monday morning breakfasts, Rihanna Gaga is not waving and shouting at them as she usually would. In fact, she is rather timid, preferring to sit on my lap and look around. Every once and a while she will crawl around to have a closer look at other children, but she's seems to be content with watching them, rather than looking for interaction. Later on, she will explore the area a bit more, looking over her shoulder every once and a while for me to confirm that she's still safe.
There's a group of mums with todlers a bit older then Rihanna Gaga. La Cantina is a great place to visit with kids: there's a little playground that's surrounded by fences, so that it's quite safe to have your children play there. I try out the slide with Rihanna Gaga - which she enjoys - and the trampoline - which she doesn't really understand. The best thing for her is the sand, though, which she likes hitting so that the sand flies around. Later on, the mums let their toddlers on the trampoline, which Rihanna Gaga watches in astonishment. None of the todlers can really walk, so stumbling around on the trampoline with their arms raised, moving squarely and shouting nonsensically, they resemble an army of drooling, fumbling zombies. That may sound rather harsh, but it really is the first image that comes to mind when I see this odd scene.
Breakfast arrives, so we return to our couch. I share some bread and some of the fruit with Rihanna Gaga. There is no music, which is probably just as well. There's large pictures of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain on the wall inside, and although I enjoy their music every once and a while - all three of them made some great pop tunes - it certainly wouldn't be to Rihanna Gaga's tastes. I also wonder how Kurt Cobain ended up on that wall. Seriously, if you see both Jimmies as musical innovators, which they really were, Kurt can't hold up a candle to them as he didn't really innovate, did he? He just repeated a rock formula that had been well established by the time grunge came around. Musical innovators of the same quality as the Jimmies would probably have been dabbling in electronic dance music in the nineties, but one of the great early house producers or dj's was probably never considered for that hall of fame. In fact, one can seriously doubt whether Cobain would have been on that wall if he hadn't committed suicide (and I remember a friend once joking that the suicide was probably in the record contract).
After breakfast we pay and walk back to the bicycle, me with Rihanna Gaga on my shoulders. I like watching her in the reflection of windows and cars when we walk like this. She looks decidedly regal. Cycling home, the stench of burned plastic still hasn't gone.
La Cantina is a classic beach club: a yellow wooden structure with tilted roof, surrounded by a sprawling terrace. Like all beach clubs at the southern beaches, it is spacious and stands on its own, with a long distance to the next beach club on either side. The furniture is unpainted or whitewashed wood, there's a few olive trees that add a mediterrean flavour to the terrace and there is a moderate amount of Buddhas to be found. And then there is the oddity of several large replicas of the Easter Island heads painted bright blue. There's a fair amount of people around, mostly mums with their children. (Don't people have jobs to do?) Theatmosphere is relaxed and the wide panoramic view adds to the laid back vibe.
In fact, as a dad I am a minority here. There is one other dad with his son of about three years old, but he loses points for team daddy when he becomes so absorbed in business phonecalls that he doesn't notice his son has lost him. While he is talking on the phone and later checking his text messages on the terrace, his son is running around among the Buddha statues inside, panicking and shouting for his dad.
I order the mini breakfast, not because I am hungry, but because oddly enough, the mini breakfast is the only breakfast there is in La Cantina. At first, it seems not great value for money at €9,95, which will bring you coffee, orange juice, croissant with jam, toast and scrambled eggs and a few bits of fresh fruit. However, most beach clubs that offer more food for the same price, won't include drinks, so that seems to even it up.
Despite the fact that there are much more people around than normally during our Monday morning breakfasts, Rihanna Gaga is not waving and shouting at them as she usually would. In fact, she is rather timid, preferring to sit on my lap and look around. Every once and a while she will crawl around to have a closer look at other children, but she's seems to be content with watching them, rather than looking for interaction. Later on, she will explore the area a bit more, looking over her shoulder every once and a while for me to confirm that she's still safe.There's a group of mums with todlers a bit older then Rihanna Gaga. La Cantina is a great place to visit with kids: there's a little playground that's surrounded by fences, so that it's quite safe to have your children play there. I try out the slide with Rihanna Gaga - which she enjoys - and the trampoline - which she doesn't really understand. The best thing for her is the sand, though, which she likes hitting so that the sand flies around. Later on, the mums let their toddlers on the trampoline, which Rihanna Gaga watches in astonishment. None of the todlers can really walk, so stumbling around on the trampoline with their arms raised, moving squarely and shouting nonsensically, they resemble an army of drooling, fumbling zombies. That may sound rather harsh, but it really is the first image that comes to mind when I see this odd scene.
Breakfast arrives, so we return to our couch. I share some bread and some of the fruit with Rihanna Gaga. There is no music, which is probably just as well. There's large pictures of Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain on the wall inside, and although I enjoy their music every once and a while - all three of them made some great pop tunes - it certainly wouldn't be to Rihanna Gaga's tastes. I also wonder how Kurt Cobain ended up on that wall. Seriously, if you see both Jimmies as musical innovators, which they really were, Kurt can't hold up a candle to them as he didn't really innovate, did he? He just repeated a rock formula that had been well established by the time grunge came around. Musical innovators of the same quality as the Jimmies would probably have been dabbling in electronic dance music in the nineties, but one of the great early house producers or dj's was probably never considered for that hall of fame. In fact, one can seriously doubt whether Cobain would have been on that wall if he hadn't committed suicide (and I remember a friend once joking that the suicide was probably in the record contract).
After breakfast we pay and walk back to the bicycle, me with Rihanna Gaga on my shoulders. I like watching her in the reflection of windows and cars when we walk like this. She looks decidedly regal. Cycling home, the stench of burned plastic still hasn't gone.
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